This project investigates places and their identities. The project aims to create a catalyst for a much needed conversation discussing places, belonging, identity and democracy by using graphic design to visualize the identities and personalities of ten neighborhoods in Malmö. Change can only come after insight.
The project is based on a literature study on the field of place branding. In this study a method for analyzing city brands is discovered, The City Brands Index. This method is modified and used in combination with a survey to evaluate the brands of the project’s ten neighborhoods. This method forms, together with a statistics comparison, a historical literature study and an observational study the basis for the design project.
Based on these studies, an escutcheon in the shape of a neighborhood shield which subtly and sometimes abstractly depicts the neighborhoods unique identity is designed for each neighborhood.
These visualizations are presented together on a website, www.malmoplatser.se/en where visitors can study these neighborhood shields as well as some of the study results. The design projects final and main point lies in the spectators own interpretation of the correlation between the study results and the neighborhood shield.
By making the city’s residents and visitors to actively reflect on the identities and importance of places, an insight of people’s relationship to each other, to belonging and community is created.